Features and specifics of organizing international trade in services

Trade in goods and services along with some other items are included in the current account of the balance of payments of any country. Negotiations on the liberalization of trade in services are being conducted in parallel with negotiations on the liberalization of trade in goods. However, there are serious qualitative differences between goods and services, as well as in the organization and technology of international trade in them. Table 13 presents the main indicators that distinguish goods from services.

Table 13

Differences between goods and services

It is precisely because of the intangibility and invisibility of most services that trade in them is sometimes called invisible exports and imports. Unlike goods, the production of services is often combined with their export under a single contract and requires a direct meeting between the seller and the buyer. However, in this case there are numerous exceptions. For example, some services are quite tangible (a printed report from a consultant or computer program on a floppy disk), are quite visible (a model's haircut or a theatrical performance), can be stored (telephone answering service) and do not always require direct interaction between the buyer and the seller (automatic withdrawal of money from a bank using a debit card).

International trade services compared to trade in goods has the following features:

· regulated not at the border, but within the country by the relevant provisions of domestic legislation . The absence or presence of the fact that a service crosses the border cannot be a criterion for the export of a service (as well as the currency in which this service is paid for);

· services cannot be stored . They are produced and consumed at the same time. Therefore, most types of services are based on direct contracts between their producers and consumers;

· production and sale of services have a large state protection than sphere material production and trade . Transport, communications, financial and insurance services, science, education, healthcare in many countries are fully or partially owned by the state or under its strict control;

· International trade in services is closely related to and has a strong impact on trade in goods . For example, the impact of the service sector on trade in knowledge-intensive goods, which requires large volumes, is great maintenance, information and various consulting services;

· Not all types of services, unlike goods, can be traded . Services that come primarily for personal consumption cannot be involved in international economic turnover.

The key to trade in services is that in most cases there must be physical contact between the buyer and seller of the service at some point. Only in this case the deal international sales services will take place. Exists several mechanisms for making transactions on international trade in services:

· Buyer mobility . Buyers of services who are residents of one country come to the seller of services who are residents of another country. Buyer mobility is usually based on the fact that abroad he will be able to obtain a service that is either not available in his country (tourism) or the quality of which is higher (education, medical care), or its cost is lower (warehousing of goods, ship repairs).

· Seller mobility . The seller of services, who is a resident of one country, comes to the buyer of services, who is a resident of another country. The mobility of the seller is usually based either on the fact that its recipient is located abroad and cannot move to the seller (audit and accounting services for enterprises), or on the specific nature of the service itself (construction).

· Simultaneous mobility of seller and buyer or the mobile nature of the service itself. Both the seller and the buyer either share the service at the same time (international telephone conversation), or gather in a third country (international conference), or the seller provides the buyer with a service through a representative office in a third country (sending foreign specialists from the Moscow representative office of the World Bank to the CIS countries to provide technical assistance).

International statistics indicate that trade in services is one of the fastest growing sectors of the world economy.

The reasons for this growth are very diverse. Sharp decline transport costs increased the degree of mobility of producers and consumers of services; new forms and means of satellite communications and video technology in some cases make it possible to completely abandon personal contact between the seller and the buyer. Process allowed to increase the demand for those services that previously had a commodity form. This applies to financial services, banking services, and insurance companies.

There are certain difficulties in statistically recording the volume of services provided. The difficulty of calculation is due to the fact that, as a rule, services are provided complete with goods. Moreover, the cost of the service often accounts for a significant portion of the price of the product. Often services appear in intra-company exchanges. In this case, it is often impossible to express and determine their value, since there is no market for these types of services at all. In some cases, separating the service from the product is impossible (for example, treating a patient with medications).

Income from banking and insurance operations “drops out” from the statistical report if they are reinvested in the same country in which they were received.

In this regard, according to a number of scientists, official balance of payments statistics, which indicate the annual turnover under the “services” item, cannot give an accurate idea of ​​the scale of international trade in services, the value of which, according to a number of experts, turns out to be underestimated
by 40–50%.

The geographical distribution of trade in services provided by individual countries is extremely uneven in favor of developed countries.

The global services market is currently dominated by eight leading countries, accounting for more than 50% of service exports and imports. The share of the top five is about 40% of exports. At the same time, four countries: the USA, Great Britain, Germany, France account for more than 35% of all world exports of services.

Developing countries are characterized by the presence negative balance in foreign trade services, while some of them are large exporters of services. For example, the Republic of Korea specializes in engineering, consulting and construction services, Mexico – in tourism, Singapore is a large financial center. Many small island states derive the bulk of their export income from tourism.

As for Russia, other CIS states and the Baltic countries, although they have potential reserves for tourism development, transport services(organize sea transportation), their widespread export is hampered by weak material resources as well as the shortcomings of the economic mechanism. For their part, Western European countries high quality complement their services with the use of wide range restrictions on the use of foreign services, including those from the CIS countries.

If we talk about the distribution of the cost of services by individual types, then highest value In the world trade in services, tourism and transport are important. The world's largest merchant fleet belongs to Japan, followed by Great Britain, Germany and Norway. Shipping accounts for 50% of this country's service exports. The market for freight and passenger transport services is dominated by the USA, followed by the UK and France. They also hold the palm in the field of foreign tourism. A large volume of tourism services is provided by France, Italy, Canada, Switzerland, where tourism brings 40–50% of export revenue.

For Turkey, Spain and a number of Mediterranean countries great value has export labor force in the form of unskilled workers leaving to earn money.

International trade in services: features, structure and dynamics International statistics indicate that world trade services is one of the fastest growing sectors of the world economy. According to the World Bank, exports of services for 1980-1998 increased 3.6 times, increasing by an average of 8% per year. The increase in trade in goods over the same period was less significant - 2.8 times (6% annually). In 1999, exports of services amounted to $1,338 billion, or 19.5% of exports of goods.

The concept of “service” has a wide range of definitions. IN general view Services are usually understood as various types of activities that do not have an explicit material form. The differences between services and goods in material form are that, firstly, they are intangible and invisible; secondly, they cannot be stored; thirdly, the production and consumption of services, as a rule, coincide in time and place.

This determines the features of international trade in services compared to international trade in goods. Among them: 1) export (import) of services often requires a direct meeting between the seller and the buyer; 2) export of services includes the provision of services foreign citizens located in the customs territory of the seller’s country; 3) the range of services offered on world markets is less than their range on the domestic market and less than the range of goods involved in international trade; 4) trade in services has a specific legal framework for its regulation both at the national and international levels.

Regulatory issues international market services The global services market is regulated international organizations. Some of the reasons that make it difficult to regulate international trade in services include the following: 1) difficulties associated with assessing the value of exported services. 2) the frequent presence of both commercial and non-commercial components in the export of services. This situation typical for the export of educational, medical, auditing and consulting services from developed countries to developing countries and countries with economies in transition; 3) insufficient attention paid to the problem of regulating international trade in services by national and international organizations, for example, the lack of relevant legislative acts.

For a long time services, according to the International standard classification, adopted by the UN, referred to “non-tradable” goods, i.e. goods that are consumed in the same country where they are produced. With the development of scientific and technical progress, internationalization economic life Some services were involved in global economic turnover and the term “tradable services” appeared, which, on the recommendation of the IMF, are reflected in the country’s balance of payments

Services are also divided into: - factor services - payments arising in connection with international movement factors of production, primarily capital and labor (investment income, royalties and licensing fees, wages of non-residents); - non-factor services - other types of services (transport, travel and other non-factor financial services).

In the last two decades, the following trends in the development of its individual segments have clearly emerged in the global services market: - the share of freight and other transport services has decreased (from 42.0% in 1980 to 21.9% in 1999), which is associated with a decrease in the specific weight of raw materials in international trade; - the share of tourism in the export of services has increased, which is due to the growth of population incomes, the improvement of means of transport, and the development of tourism infrastructure (from 28.0% to 43.2% in 1980 -1999); - in terms of absolute growth rates and significance in the total volume of world exports of services, the main (44.7%) and most dynamically developing segment has become the “special private services” segment, which includes financial, insurance, auditing, consulting and other services; - there was a reduction in the share of official and government services.

The factors that determined the intensive development of international trade in services in the post-war period were: - Scientific and technical progress, which contributed to the growth in the production of services, the emergence of new types of services and the expansion of their areas of application; - a long economic recovery in most countries of the world, accompanied by growth business activity, labor productivity, level of well-being of the people; - increasing the share of services in the structure of GDP in many countries of the world; - development of international trade in goods and technologies, capital migration.

Modern features trade in services The geographic focus of trade in services is even more skewed in favor of developed countries than international trade in goods. The share of developed countries in world exports of services is about 90% and exceeds their share in exports of goods. Developed countries are the main exporters and importers of services. In 1999, the share of countries Western Europe in world exports of services accounted for 46.2%, the USA - 19.5%, Japan - 4.4%.

The share of developing countries in international trade in services has increased due to South Asian services exporters: South Korea, specializing in engineering consulting and construction services, Hong Kong and Singapore, focused on financial services, etc. At the same time, these countries continue to remain predominantly importers of services. Not a single developing country is among the top ten largest exporters.

Developed countries specialize in providing business services, developing countries - in providing tourism services (approximately 17% of all foreign exchange earnings). The share of countries with transition economies is still low - 3.5% and 2.9% in world exports and imports of services, respectively. In the Central and Eastern Europe, Baltic and CIS countries, the largest share in the provision of services belongs to Russia; the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary are the most competitive in the global services market.

The degree of monopolization of world trade in services is much higher than international trade in goods. The foreign share in the balance sheet of the French bank Credit Lyon, which ranks 9th in the world ranking list, is 46.4%. There are 32 largest companies in the secondary insurance market insurance companies concentrated in their hands more than 70% of its volume. Each of the 6 largest auditing companies in the world (Arthur Andersen, KPMG, Ernst-and-Young, Coopers and Lybrand, DTT, Price Waterhouse) has representative offices in more than 110 countries world, and their total share in industry revenue is estimated at 30%. 60% of the global consulting services market is concentrated in the hands of 40 companies.

The settlement of the basic principles of international trade in services was one of the controversial issues of the Uruguay Round of negotiations within the GATT. Until this time, on an international scale, regulation in this area occurred only within the framework of specialized organizations, including codes developed by the OECD, i.e., practically absent. Already at the beginning of the negotiations, a contradiction between developed and developing countries emerged. The first group believed that trade in services should be included in common system regulation of international trade, and the second took the view that services should be separated from material goods. As a result, a separate negotiating group on services was created at the beginning of the Uruguay Round. The GATT was taken as a model and basis for negotiations, but due to significant differences in the movement of goods and services across borders, a completely new agreement was drawn up - the General Agreement on Trade in Services, GATS.

International trade in services has a number of features compared to traditional trade in goods.

First, services, unlike goods, are produced and consumed largely simultaneously and cannot be stored. Therefore, most types of services are based on direct contacts between producers and consumers, which separates international trade in services from trade in goods, which often uses intermediation.

Secondly, this trade closely interacts with trade in goods and has an increasing impact on it. Everyone is involved in the supply of goods abroad more services, from market analysis to the transportation of goods. The success of a product in the foreign market largely depends on the quality and quantity of services involved in its production and sale (including after-sales service).

Thirdly, the service sector is usually more protected by the state from foreign competition than the sphere of material production. Moreover, transport and communications, financial and insurance services, and science in many countries are traditionally fully or partially owned by the state or strictly controlled by it. The import of services on a significant scale may be considered by the public and governments of many countries to pose a threat to their well-being, sovereignty and security. As a result, there are more barriers to international trade in services than to trade in goods.

Fourthly, not all types of services, unlike goods, are suitable for wide involvement in international economic turnover. First of all, this applies to some types of services that come primarily for personal consumption (for example, utilities and household services).

Trade intermediation in the service sector

In foreign economic relations, a significant place is occupied by relations between producers of exported goods and services and trading and intermediary firms. These relationships are mediated by special types of contracts - contracts of agency and commission.

The subject of the agreement is mandates in the field foreign economic activity are most often market research, price calculations, identifying interested customers, establishing contacts with them, conducting advertising campaigns, conducting negotiations with the conclusion of contracts, etc. Such contracts for services are of a reimbursable nature.

In accordance with the commission agreement, one party (the commission agent), on behalf of the other party (the principal), undertakes, for a fee, to carry out one or more transactions for the principal on its own behalf (for a product or service).

Among the services provided by intermediaries, we can note the purchase and sale of goods on their own behalf, but at someone else’s expense (commission trading), lending to buyers, renting (leasing), concluding contracts with transport and insurance companies, control of goods, mediation in payment transactions , organizing the relevant document flow, resolving misunderstandings with customs, representation in arbitration courts, warehousing and loading, carrying out advertising and other events to promote goods to foreign markets, etc.

Intermediaries can be specialized or universal. The idea of ​​universalization was most fully developed within the framework of trading houses, whose activities may include the provision of a wide range of services in the country and abroad. This form is especially common in Japan. There, in the mid-80s of the twentieth century, 9 trading houses controlled about 40% of export and 50% of import transactions.

Over the past three decades, the service sector has been one of the most dynamically developing sectors of the world economy. Exchange of services plays an important role in international trade. In 2013, exports of services were valued at $4.6 trillion, while global exports of goods approached $18.3 trillion. The term “services” covers several dozen types of activities, the products of which can be defined as “services.” . The services include all types of transport activities, information transmission services, tourism, construction, education, medicine, financial and banking activities, etc.

A distinctive feature of international trade in services from international trade in goods is diversity, heterogeneity and versatility various types services, the complexity of a unified approach to regulating their import and export, and the application of generally accepted international trade standards to trade in services: in particular, most favored nation treatment and national treatment. The herd mentioned above is one of the main reasons that, until the early 1990s. trade in services was not covered by a general multilateral intergovernmental agreement like the GATT. At the same time individual species services were regulated by sectoral interstate multilateral agreements. And only by the mid-1990s. As a result of the Uruguay round of multilateral negotiations, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) was created, containing general legal norms for all types of services. International exchange of services is developing at a rapid pace.

International transport and international private (tourism) and business (business) travel account for 47% of the value of service exports. About 75% of the value of services is exported developed countries. According to the WTO, in 2013 the USA accounted for 14.3% of world exports of services, the UK - 6.3%, Germany - 6.2%, France - 5.1%, China - 4.4%, India and The Netherlands - 3.2% each. These countries, with comparable shares, occupy a leading position in the import of services (Table 2.7). Russia's role in international trade in services is small (in world exports of services - 1.4%, in world imports - 2.8%).

Table 2.7

International trade in services in 1970-2013, billion dollars

Source-. WTO International Trade Statistics 1970-2014.

Rapid growth rates of international trade in services and expansion of their positions in the economies of all countries - characteristic feature development of the modern world economy.

Scientific and technological progress is one of the main circumstances that changes not only the place of services in the economy, but also the traditional understanding of this area of ​​the economy. Services today are knowledge-intensive sectors of the economy that use the latest information Technology. The very concept of “service” is defined today by a group of such knowledge-intensive industries as transport, global telecommunication systems; financial, credit and banking services rich in electronics; computer and information services; modern healthcare; education.

The development of the structure of the service sector occurs in several directions. First of all, this is the emergence of completely new types of services, such as computer services, information networks, electronic commerce, logistics (or commodity flow management), global transport systems, using many types of transport, united in continuous transport chains, etc. Next, there is an active separation and separation into independent industries of a number of types of services that were previously of an intra-company auxiliary nature. This applies to marketing services, advertising, accounting audits and legal services and many other types of services as independent areas of business. Finally, a notable phenomenon has been the formation of large integrated companies that provide the consumer with a “package” of services, allowing the use of a single supplier without the burden of dealing with providers of other specific ancillary services.